St Andrew's chief executive to take 50 per cent pay cut this year

The charity reveals that Philip Sugarman has been doing both the chief executive and medical director roles and has volunteered for a pay cut

Philip Sugarman

The chief executive of the mental healthcare charity St Andrew’s, who had a £101,000 pay increase in 2012/13, is taking a 50 per cent pay cut this year.

Third Sectorrevealed last week that Philip Sugarman’s salary went up from £552,000 in 2011/12 to £653,000 last year, a rise of more than 18 per cent.

But the charity has since said that Sugarman, who was carrying out both the chief executive and medical director roles at St Andrew’s, volunteered a "couple of years ago" for a 50 per cent reduction in salary as part of a planned transition to performing only the chief executive position.

The decision took effect from April, when he relinquished the medical director role and a new chief medical officer was appointed. Sugarman will be paid £325,000 this year.

A spokeswoman for the charity, which did not mention the planned salary reduction when asked to comment on Sugarman’s salary for the original story, said the charity had not wanted to provide figures that could not yet be backed up by an annual report.

A statement from the charity said: "Professor Sugarman’s pay has been historically as per our accounts due both to his leadership of St Andrew’s extraordinary success and to him carrying out the chief executive officer and medical director roles concurrently for many years."

It said that a couple of years ago he volunteered for a planned 50 per cent salary decrease, which had been implemented by the charity’s remuneration committee and would be reflected in its next set of accounts.

"Professor Sugarman’s role is now simply as group chief executive officer across St Andrew’s," it said.

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